


The Rigmarole Dance

by cannibalinc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Harry is a Dumb Jock, Humor, James Potter Lives, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, Lily Evans Potter Lives, M/M, Not that he deserves it, Oblivious Harry Potter, One-Sided Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Post-First War with Voldemort, Soulmates, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannibalinc/pseuds/cannibalinc
Summary: Harry is nine years old when he points at Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin, High Warlock of England, and declares "You're my soulmate, and we're going to be married."
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 132
Kudos: 2183
Collections: An Unlikely Pairing, Others, Qualis Ficta, Top-tier HP/TMR Fics, Yukikawa’s HP Bookshelf, i have seen your heart and it is mine





	The Rigmarole Dance

One might say that Harry Potter is destined for greatness. 

That he might one day be the prophesied vanquisher of dark lords, that he might grow up in an altogether too-small cupboard under the stairs. He might discover the world of magic with a forever friend, Rubeus Hagrid; might ride a broom, a hippogriff, a thestral or a dragon, and that’s only the short list! Harry might terrorize his professors in delightful ways, he might be called Roonil Wazlib by his friends... and then again, might not be. He might face monstrosities no child should ever be asked to face but they might ask anyway, and might love, love, love harder than any boy has any right.

 _Some_ of that _might_ one day be true. 

On this day, Tuesday, July thirty-first, 1979, it is true that Severus Snape is standing at Lily Potter’s front door.

It is true that the Death Eaters have noticeably decided not to be quite so radical in the recent months past, as it is also true that the Dark Lord Voldemort has seemed to transition from a violent crusade to a… political _campaign_. 

Is that worse? It might be.

To this end, Severus is rather tired of being so tortured all the time; he really just prefers the occasional malaise. 

“So you’re not a blood supremacist.”

“Er, not anymore, no.”

“The Death Eaters and Dark Lord are disbanding following a cease fire and pardon agreement with the Ministry?”

“Essentially.”

“And you think I should forgive you because you’ve realized what a massive twat you’ve been these last few years, and you’re _really, really_ sorry.”

“In so many words,” Severus says, feeling a little terse now.

“...Yeah, all right.”

And it is.

—

Some people still died up to this point. Some ex-Death Eaters were hunted and _excised_ for crimes that could not be forgotten by their victims. Some grudges run very, very deep and always will. 

In February 1980 a certain prophecy is still told, and Severus Snape still is witness to this. He still reports it, though not to his master, but to Ministry Official _Not_ Dark Lord Voldemort, Thomas Marvolo Slytherin. Thomas Marvolo Slytherin holds the position of High Warlock of England, an Official Ministry Title of great and ultimate power, coincidentally invented by the very man a few months prior. 

However, Severus also reports this prophecy to Lily once it becomes clear it may refer to her as-of-yet born child, and _now_ …

Now Lord Slytherin accompanies Severus to the Potter household “To bless the babe” of course, as all great warlocks should honor the tradition, why Dumbledore was just here to do the very same, and I believe Sirius Black, though a scoundrel, has been allowed a blessing, Mr. Potter please put your wand away really, such dramatics are hardly necessary. 

“It is not as though I am worried the Prophecy refers to the childe and _Me_ ,” he says, highly affected such that he must put a delicate hand to his own chest in a whimsical swoon. “Why, that would first require me to be a Dark Lord, and I Am Not A Dark Lord, dear Potters.”

“You lie!” James roars, wand pressed right under Lord Slytherin’s rather modest nose. “You were Voldemort barely a year ago!”

“It is not a lie,” Not Voldemort sniffs, swatting the wand away. “It is a rebranding. I’ll require the childe’s name for my gift.” 

And it will definitely be superior to whatever Dumbledore gave him, it goes unsaid.

“Like Hell!” James scoffs.

“It’s Harry. Dumbledore blessed him with a lifelong fit of perfect socks.”

James is utterly betrayed by his wife.

“Ah, socks? Typical. Harrrrryyyy, you say...”

“ _Don’t_ say it like that.”

Not Lord Voldemort does not roll his eyes at James, but he does bless baby Harry. He weaves a gentle spell from the air that suffuses itself into Lily’s womb right along the other blessings, Harry notwithstanding. 

“Well, what did you gift him?” Lily asks.

“May he find his soulmate.”

“Unexpectedly romantic.”

“I take pleasure in exceeding every expectation, Lady Potter.”

“Stop flirting with my wife!”

Lord Slytherin releases Lily’s hand, as he had been flirting a bit.

He leaves after, to visit the Longbottoms next apparently. Has to beat Dumbledore to it.

“Don’t bring him here again,” James tells Severus.

“It wasn’t exactly my idea.”

“When is it ever!”

“He’s a politician, you tit, a very powerful one. Am I to say no to his request?”

“Bah!”

Bah?

“Politicians! Potioneers! Dark Lords, none of them welcome here!”

—

The next few months are not very calm or very rakous. Severus endures several Potter brunches with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, and it’s all very agonizing. He honestly misses the days they were mortal enemies instead. 

Harry is born July 31st, 1980, exactly a year after Severus first darkened the Potter door. Sirius Black is named Godfather and Severus Snape is named Godfather also. It is a point of great contention, for while Sirius wants to raise Harry to be adventurous and fun, Severus wants to raise Harry to be sensible and alive. 

Luckily for Harry, he does not have to be raised by anyone but his loving parents. 

He does ride a broom, a children’s one, and incidentally a hippogriff later on when he’s three. He goes to Young Magicians Primary, an institute founded by Lord Slytherin actually, and lives very happily under all his blessings. All his socks fit perfectly, for which he writes to Mr. Dumbledore every year as thanks, and he never gets tongue tied as per Sirius. 

And when he is nine years old, the Potter family attends a lovely soiree hosted by the Bones family, in which many Ministry officials, some of very high position indeed, also attend.

He lays eyes on one man who seems a bit greater than just a man, arguing loudly with Mr. Dumbledore over something called budgeting. He has very slender hands and he is so, so, so tall, and Harry pulls away from his school friends Ron and Dean and Luna and Susan until he’s standing right on top of the man’s pointy shoes.

The adults go rather quiet at this until they speak all at once as though it were a race.

“Er, hello Harry, do you have something to ask the High Warlock?”

“Harry, my boy, so good to see you.”

“Harry, why don’t you go back to the yard to play with the others?”

Harry, in comparing the silent stare this man is giving him to these myriad of voices, finds them all very uninteresting. 

He points up to him, so that there can be no doubt. His mother has always taught him to clarify statements to prevent misunderstandings. He’s used this tool to his advantage many times, such as when he declared Aunt Petunia’s cooking bad so that she might improve. 

“You’re my soulmate, and we’re going to be married.”

There seems to be some pandemonium upon this declaration, to which Harry also minds little.

“Is that so,” the man says, sipping from his flask. “How nice of you to make me aware.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry chirps happily.

Harry asks for the man’s name. The man does not answer with Lord Voldemort, and it is a very long answer indeed. 

“This is your fault—!” James sputters at Not Voldemort. “Some blessing!”

This negative reaction surprises and unnerves Harry, and he clutches High Warlock of England, Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin-Potter’s hand tightly. Harry has added the -Potter because the other man forgot it earlier.

“That’s a bit presumptuous,” High Warlock of England Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin-Potter says, glancing at where Harry’s small hand has taken hold of his fingers. “Perhaps I’d like to take things slow.”

“Don’t talk to my son!” Sirius and James shout at the same time, and they’re too distracted to be embarrassed about it.

“James, Sirius, please,” Remus says, but the other party members are unruffled. Some sort of scene is bound to occur at these things. That’s just what happens when former enemies break bread. Lily, for instance, watches in detached interest, sipping her Pixie-rita.

“How am I to get to know my future spouse if I can’t speak to him?” Not Voldemort asks, with no small measure of sly relish.

“Actually, perhaps you shouldn’t Tom,” Mr. Dumbledore says. “Goad them, I mean.”

“Mr. Tom? Mr. Tom!” Harry tugs incessantly on the man’s robes.

“Harry, it’s not nice to interrupt,” Lily reminds him.

“I was talking to him first, so you all interrupted me, thank you very much!”

“And we are deeply apologetic for it, dear boy,” Mr. Dumbledore tells him. “But if we could ask you one thing… why do you say Tom is your soulmate?”

Harry looks into the man’s face. It is strange, maybe snake-like if one squints, and his eyes seem a little red, and when Harry looks at him he just _knows_. 

“Because he is! Because I just know!”

“How delightful,” Dumbledore chuckles at the same time Sirius shouts “Absolutely not!” 

“We’re going home,” James announces and grabs Harry’s other hand and begins to pull. “Harry, let go—no, not _my_ hand. Let—! Go—!”

The tugging commences for some time, but it appears Harry’s hand has not let go. It becomes a chain, James recruiting Sirius and any other idiot willing to join the game of tug-of-war. 

“You have a very sturdy grip, Harry,” Mr. Tom tells him as his shoulder is juttered from side to side, and Harry beams. “Particularly relentless.”

"Yes,” James grits. “It is.” 

“James, stop jostling our son, you'll dislocate his shoulder.”

“Mum, can Mr. Tom come over for lunch tomorrow?” Harry asks, now full-on holding the aforementioned’s leg.

"I… Oh, Harry. Darling, if Mr… Mr. _Tom_ has the time, of course he can come. But he's very busy… _High Warlock_ , I mean...”

They appear to acquire a very captive audience as all eyes, including Harry's own, turn to the man in question. 

“Mr. Tom, will you pretty-please, with cherries on top, come have lunch with me tomorrow?"

He waits with bated breath as the man slowly reaches a hand up to pat Harry gingerly and mechanically on the head.

“I would be delighted, childe.” 

The Potters leave shortly thereafter with no small amount of tittering and _repeated_ reassurances to Harry that Mr. Tom will indeed come, yes, yes Harry we promise, will you please stand in the Floo now.

“Oh, dear,” Dumbledore says when all is said and done, with a very indulgent smile. 

Not Voldemort scoffs.

“Spare me.”

—

Mr. Tom does in fact come to the luncheon the following day and it is the most lovely afternoon Harry has ever had. Mr. Tom doesn’t eat any of the butterscotch and frogwart sandwiches he’s made, but they do drink a lot of tea together and Harry shows him his entire Chocolate Frog collection. They are both pleasantly surprised when Harry actually has several ‘High Warlock of England Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin’ cards, the ‘-Potter’ missing, but Harry believes implied. 

At the end, Harry asks his mother if Mr. Tom mightn’t come back every day, and Lily sighs.

“It would outright kill your father, sweetheart. And I can’t keep banishing him from the house every afternoon. Why don’t we just… find a new hobby instead?”

Now Harry sighs. He promises to himself when he’s all grown up, he won’t allow anyone to stop him from being with his soulmate. 

His childhood continues pleasantly, and everyone laughs the memory away into a haze. “He’s so young,” and “nothing’s wrong with a little crush,” and “he’ll grow out of it.” They forget it even happened, and everyone silently agrees to stop bringing it up. 

Harry himself doesn’t mention it any longer.

Not because he was so young or had a little crush or grew out of it. He stops reminding everyone in the same way he might not remind someone he wears glasses, or that wizards use wands, or that he’s right-handed, unless someone asks. These things are easily seen and aren’t forgotten, they’re just true and sometimes a bit boring. 

Life goes on. 

—

He turns eleven and goes to Hogwarts. 

He’s sorted into Gryffindor and takes full advantage of his education by playing lots of exploding snap instead of doing all his essays, and writes to home and argues with that horribly annoying _Draco Malfoy,_ ugh, and announces very, very occasionally and loudly so anyone close might hear that Lord Slytherin is his soulmate and some day they will be married. 

“Harry, you’ve got to give that up,” Ron tells him. “It’s so embarrassing.”

Harry looks down at the front page of the Daily Prophet, drinking in Picture Lord Slytherin’s shaking hands with Cornelius Fudge then discreetly wiping his palm on his robes when Picture Fudge looks away. 

“Why is it embarrassing? Was it embarrassing when you read Angelina that poem you wrote for her?”

“Yes! And because it’s not real!”

“Highly improbable at least,” Hermione chimes in.

“Try completely impossible,” Millicent Bulstrade says as she breezes by the Gryffindor table, and who asked her! “As if the Lordship of Slytherin would ever be with a _Gryffindor._ The shame!”

Harry carries this new doubt with him all the way to Potions Class. Should he have agreed with the Sorting Hat when it said he’d do well in Slytherin? He hadn’t really thought about it, just wanted to be in Gryffindor because that’s where his closest friends were. He’s a Potter, for Godric’s sake!

Uncle Severus writes his instructions on the board and directs them to their ingredients. Harry raises his hand. 

“Mr. Potter,” Uncle Severus says, as he insists on calling Harry at Hogwarts even though the man has known him all his life, changed his diapers even, and cried when he got his Hogwarts letter. “This had better be class-related. What is it?”

“Yes, Professor Uncle Severus sir. Do you think it’s impossible for me and Lord Slytherin to marry because I was sorted into Gryffindor?”

The class erupts into laughter, and Uncle Severus loses his temper as he is wont to do. 

“Potter! Do not disrupt my class for such frivolous nonsense!” He sneers. “How like your _father_.”

Harry raises his hand.

“Has there ever been a case of resorting? Could I transfer into Slytherin maybe?”

“My honourable House would never play host for such a dunderheaded fool!”

Well.

Harry raises his hand again.

“NO, POTTER.”

As consequence to this little display of public disloyalty to his own House, his fellow Gryffindors harbour somewhat cooler feelings toward him. They start calling him Slytherin-kisser, and Draco Malfoy, _ugh_ , won’t stop making obnoxious kissing faces at him. Harry becomes unfortunately infamous for being a House Traitor, and so Harry resolves to do as everyone has always told him to do. That is, to shut up about High Warlock of England Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin-Potter.

It is a very painful few years. 

—

While the rest of his peers giggle about it as if it were all in the past, Harry can’t help but feel crestfallen as he chuckles nervously along. 

Ron tries to set him up with Cho Chang during their fourth year, after she and Cedric Diggory split up for the third time, but when Harry looks at Cho he can’t help but see Cedric’s very disappointed, very handsome face staring through her eyes, and has he always been so very handsome? Besides, it isn’t Cedric’s fault he’s so distracted by the Triwizard Tournament. Harry wouldn’t be able to sustain a relationship if _he_ were Hogwarts’ champion either.

For a while Harry awkwardly dates Ginny. They kiss a grand total of two times before she pulls him aside and says very gently that he’s a bit rubbish at it and that they should be friends because she’s pretty sure she’s not as interested in boys as he is at the moment. And that Luna is looking very cute lately in her giant raven-shaped hat apparently.

“You only asked me out after I cut my hair, you know.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re saying to me.”

Ginny rolls her eyes and hugs him and calls him an idiot. 

“Maybe you should ask Malfoy about it?”

“Malfoy, ugh, _why_?”

“Good luck, Harry.”

She walks away.

“Why do I need good luck? Ginny!”

Ginny never answers. 

Ron is happier Harry isn’t dating his sister anyhow.

—

At these really low points, Harry can’t help but to retreat to his dorm, lights dimmed and curtains drawn. He never tells a soul, but in these moments, he’ll sometimes write a letter to lift his spirits. He’ll mention any number of things, like how he convinced Uncle Sirius to send him his father’s invisibility cloak last year, or how he beat Malfoy in quidditch again, or how he really, really doesn’t understand girls at all and he’d really rather just hang with his mates.

He’ll sign this letter _Yours_ then address it affectionately to Mr. Tom even though at fourteen he’s very aware the man has a very long, proper title. At last, he’ll badger Hedwig into sending it off, for even she judges him harshly for his admittedly inexplicable infatuation.

Harry never receives any response except for once.

With a strangely beating heart and fingers that feel like clubs, he opens the letter in the Great Hall over breakfast. 

‘Do NOT ask Malfoy about it.’

There is no sign-off.

“Ask Malfoy about what?” Ron asks, leaning over Harry’s letter. 

Would it be weird to smell the letter? Yeah, that would be weird. 

He does anyway.

“Sniffing parchment now, Potter?” Malfoy calls from the Slytherin table, and gives a rude hand gesture. “Sniff this!”

“I’d take the letter’s advice,” Hermione says.

—

Professor McGonagall announces the Yule Ball over dinner and the whole of three schools seem to collectively lose their minds. Harry himself simply doesn’t understand, but for some reason Hermione and Ron are fighting, all of the girls in his year won’t stop giggling whenever he comes around, and all anyone ever talks about is who they’re going to ask to the Ball.

Worst of all, they have to take dancing classes instead of Transfiguration now.

It’s horrible.

Harry is stepping all over Parvati Patil’s shoes in a truly incomprehensible step sequence, when Ron whispers very loudly across the room.

“Harry, why don’t you ask Fleur Delacour? That way I can ask her after she rejects you.”

“Great idea, Ron,” Harry mutters.

“Fat chance,” Parvati rolls her eyes, ripping her robe’s hem from Harry’s sneakers.

“Potter? Go to the Ball with Delacour? As if!” Malfoy laughs, twirling Pansy Parkinson elegantly around. “Why, you might as well ask _me_ to the Ball for all the good it would do you.”

Harry stops to look at him.

“Why would you want me to ask _you_?”

Malfoy drops Pansy from a low dip to round on Harry.

“I-I don’t! Why would _you_ ask _that_? Do you have a crush on me or something?” Malfoy has gone very red at this point. “Do you hear that everyone? Potter has a crush on me! Haha!”

“I don’t!”

“I almost feel sorry for you, Potter.”

“Piss off, Malfoy!”

“That’s quite enough boys!”

—

The only highlight in all of this is that Harry learns each school will have an ambassador attend the Ball. There will be Durmstrang’s council president and some French delegate, and Hogwarts. Hogwarts’ will be Barty Crouch Jr., whatever, Cornelius Fudge, eh, and, thank the gods, Lord Slytherin. In the flesh! 

Harry hasn’t seen the man since he was nine years old!

He agonizes over it for weeks, and when the night finally arrives, he’s beside himself with nerves.

“Harry why do you keep messing up your hair like that?” Hermione asks. She tires to reach for Harry’s head, but he skillfully dodges her. 

“What? It’s not messed up, it’s… artfully dishevelled. It’s cool!”

“It’s a bird’s nest.”

Now Harry mashes his hair down self-consciously.

“I have to go find Viktor, see you on the other side!”

She sweeps away in your shimmery blue gown, and Harry walks the rest of the way to the Great Hall alone. He’s opted to go stag, and since Ron and Hermine are still fighting, Ron disappeared some hours ago. 

The Ball is beautiful. The champions lead a dance, and Harry is so thankful he wasn’t unlucky enough to be a part of the spectacle. That would be a nightmare. Hermione looks beautiful of course, and so does Cho Chang and so does Cedric Diggory, he’s quite handsome, has Harry mentioned?

Professor Dumbledore steps forward on the platform that's been converted into a stage to make a speech, and Harry’s attention glazes over. He drifts along the speech, eyes wandering the stage where he sees, ah there’s Madame Maxine and Headmaster Karkaroff, Undersecretary Crouch Jr., and… and…

It is quite possible Harry’s body becomes utterly possessed. It wants to scream in a very loud voice.

“LORD SLYTHERIN!” he screams in a very loud voice.

Dumbledore’s next word dies in his mouth.

“Harry, no,” someone whispers from somewhere, but he can barely hear her over the rush in his ears. He politely shoves a few students out of the way to get closer.

“POTTER, DESIST!” Uncle Severus shouts.

“Lord Slytherin!” he calls, completely ignoring him, now in a more reasonable bellow. “Will you marry me?”

There falls a very familiar silence in which everyone waits for an answer, most of all Harry.

“Yes.”

Pandemonium, et al. 

It’s so uproarious, all the important Ministry officials are bade to leave for security reasons, Lord Slytherin among them.

Privately, when Barty Crouch Jr. asks Not His Lord why he accepted Harry’s proposal, he responds.

“I thought it’d be funny.”

“Hm.”

"I didn't mean to say yes, actually."

"Hm?"

"I simply… had to, you see."

" _Hmm_."

Harry is so high in spirit, Lord Slytherin’s absence does not bother him a whit, and he spends the rest of the ball in a happy daze. He dances with Hermione and Ron and all his friends, and even says ‘why not’ when Daphne Greengrass dares him to dance with Malfoy. Harry takes pleasure in stepping on his glossy shoes.

“Ow! Are you really engaged?” Malfoy asks as they turn together. “I mean, aren’t you a little young to get engaged already?”

Harry shrugs.

“I dunno. He said yes.”

“But did he really mean it?”

“He’s my soulmate.”

“But are you really, _really_ sure? Maybe there’s… someone else who might like to be your soulmate. Someone in your Year. Someone like… like...”

“It’s none of your business, Malfoy!”

Malfoy scowls, and shoves him away. 

“Well, who would want to be your soulmate, anyway! Get lost, Potter!”

Harry stomps off toward the stage where the Weird Sisters are playing to find his friends in the crowd of revelers.

“How was your dance with Malfoy?” Ron shouts.

“How do you think!”

“Poor bloke doesn’t stand a chance against a High Warlock!” Fred shouts, doing a dance move called the leaping centaur. 

“What?” Harry shouts. “I didn’t hear you!”

“Congrats on your engagement!” Fred repeats.

“Oh, thanks!”

—

When Harry wakes up the following morning with a hoarse voice and a pounding headache, he wakes to a very angry letter co-written by his father and Uncle Sirius, and an embarrassing photo of himself reaching through a crowd of disgruntled students to Lord Slytherin in the distance.

‘Is It Even Legal? Ministry Source Says No, Not Really, Not Even Remotely In Fact’ the headline reads. Harry doesn’t bother with reading the rest of the article.

He doesn’t care.

“Congrats on your engagement, Potter!” Ernie McMillian yells in the Great Hall and guffaws along with his friends.

“Thanks!”

“Don’t say thanks to that Harry, they’re making fun of you,” Ginny says.

Harry frowns.

“Oh.”

He receives what his friends assure him to be malicious teasing for the weeks to come, but the rest of the school year is a breeze. Harry continues to be mediocre in most of his classes, he plays quidditch very well, and he orders a Muggle catalogue on wedding bands. 

—

When he hops off the Hogwarts Express to his parents, he comes crashing down as the following summer is a bit… tense. It’s very quiet in the Potter household, like his parents just don’t know what to say to him anymore. Harry supposes it’s a bit of shock, your son suddenly getting engaged with no notice whatsoever. Each day holds some new awkward scene in which his dad has become all metaphorical elbows and whispers in corners with Uncle Sirius whenever he thinks Harry can’t see. His mum spends the afternoons out with Mr. Lovegood or the Longbottoms, and hasn’t had a full conversation with Harry once.

In fact, the only day things seem almost normal is on his fifteenth birthday. They throw a party at the Burrow and everyone is there, the Weasleys, the Grangers, Hagrid, Remus and Peter, all his school friends, Lovegoods and Longbottoms, Ted and Andromeda, even Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, _ugh_ , though Harry can’t fathom why. He doesn’t know who invited them, and Malfoy doesn’t even bring him a present!

“I-I didn’t get this for you,” he says as he hands over a small, fluttering snitch charm on a chain. “Mother made me, it wasn’t my idea! She thought maybe you’ll finally catch a snitch if it’s tied down. Well? Do you hate it?”

“Isn’t that sweet, Harry?” his mother says, and Harry looks at her in disbelief.

He hooks the charm dutifully to his rucksack, though he isn’t happy about it.

The party goes well into the evening, and Sirius sneaks him a goblet of firewhiskey. It’s worth it even after Mrs. Weasley catches them and scolds them with the hard end of a wooden spoon. The buzz takes the edge off, and he laughs all the way through the floo, spinning out on the floor.

But when he comes home from the Weasley’s, and steps into the living room it’s to an ambush.

“Harry,” his mother says. “There’s something we need to tell you.”

Harry looks from his mother, to his father, to Headmaster Dumbledore.

“It wasn’t me brewing Polyjuice Potion in the girl’s lavatory.”

“Not that, Harry, please have a seat.”

He sits.

The three stare at him for a very long time.

“Harry,” they all say at the same time, become flustered, and fall silent again. 

“Why don’t you start, Professor?” James asks.

Professor Dumbledore seems to brace himself. 

“Harry, before you were born, there was a war going on.”

“Yeah…? And it stopped in a ceasefire. Everyone knows that.”

“Before the ceasefire, one side of the war was led by a Dark Lord, named He Who Must Not Be Named.”

“That’s a silly name.”

“Quite. But actually He Who Must Not Be Named called himself Voldemort, and before that, he was a boy, a young man, named Tom Riddle.”

“This is too many names.”

“Harry,” James scolds.

“Following the ceasefire, Voldemort became a Ministry official, and though it remained unspoken who this man once was, everyone in the know knew. And after this, there was a prophecy told.”

“A prophecy?”

“Yes. It told of a child born around late July, or early August, whose parents fought against the Dark Lord. A child who has the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, who will be marked as his equal, and who cannot survive so long as the other lives.”

“What does this have to do with me? Do you think I’m going to be a Dark Lord?” he asks, alarmed.

“No, Harry, Merlin, you’re the child!” Dad blurts. “Or we think you are.”

“But… why? There is no Dark Lord. There was a ceasefire!”

They all look at one another.

“Harry...” his mother starts. “You see...”

“Thomas Slytherin is Voldemort,” James says. “Harry stop—! Stop laughing, we’re serious!”

Harry does not stop laughing.

“He’s evil, Harry!” James shouts over him.

“Evil? He built that magician’s orphanage. The only one in England! He’s the reason we have a primary school. He freed the basilisk that was trapped in Hogwarts’ toilets and sent her to a rehabilitation farm in Romania! He said YES when I ASKED HIM to MARRY ME.”

“ _Pure evil_ , Harry. He’s a bully!”

“YOU were a bully! Uncle Severus tells me about it in excruciating detail every time I get cheeky in class.”

“Harry, please try to understand,” Professor Dumbledore urges him. 

“I am. I just don’t get it. Why does any of this matter now?”

“We suspect,” Professor Dumbledore says, “if you were to marry him, now that such a thing, beyond all reason frankly, seems possible, then… it technically would make you equals. Spouses.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Harry asks, writing Slytherin-Potter over and over again in his head. 

“It would set the prophecy into motion,” Lily says.

“It would?”

“And then...” she prompts him.

“And then?”

“You would have to kill each other!” James explodes.

Harry stares at them agape. It isn’t funny anymore.

“This is stupid! He’s my soulmate! Where did this prophecy even come from?”

“I believe you’re acquainted with our Divination professor at Hogwarts.”

“Professor Trelawney?” Harry is laughing again. “The prophet who said Ravenclaw would win the House Cup last year? Hufflepuff won!”

“Harry—”

“She once predicted the outcome of the Goblin wars. They were three hundred years ago!”

“Okay—”

“She _divined_ ‘in the tea leaves’ Lavender Brown and Cormac McLaggen would become an item. They had been dating for two months!”

“Harry, we get it!”

“He walked her to that class every day for weeks. You want me to decide my life based on some prophecy I’ve never heard of by a witch who ISN'T A PROPHET? Just sabotage my future based on a hunch?”

“When the possibility may be death?” Dumbledore asks, as though fascinated.

“SOME LOVE IS WORTH DYING FOR.”

“I told you he is cursed,” James mutters. “Some blessing.”

“HE IS MY SOULMATE.”

“We know, Harry,” Lily placates. “We know.”

Harry pants for breath.

“We just worry. You should be seeing someone your own age. Enjoying being a teenager. You know, we love you no matter what. It’s all right if you like boys, Harry.”

“What? I don’t like boys.”

His parents stare unblinkingly at him.

“Can I go to bed now?”

They sigh.

“Of course.”

His mother hugs him and his father kisses the top of his tangled head.

“Have you been drinking firewhiskey?” Dad asks, sniffing.

Harry dashes for the stairs. 

“Good night!”

“Oh, and Harry, try to keep all this a secret, okay? Do you think they really could be soulmates?” Lily asks.

“You know, I truly hope they are, my dear,” Dumbledore says. 

“I didn’t hear that,” James mutters.

—

Upstairs, Harry tosses and turns in bed. What is he meant to do now? 

All this time, his plans have been built around eventually honeymooning somewhere with Lord Slytherin. Building a family. 

Now he has to think about what he might do with himself if he doesn’t get married to his soulmate. Go into professional quidditch? He could probably write Krum for a recommendation…

Dad and Sirius probably want him to be an Auror, but Harry doesn’t fancy being a wizard cop. He’s always been an against-the-establishment kind of guy.

“I’m having a hard time distinguishing the difference between good and bad examples of being against the establishment. Like, Voldemort is bad, but my mum chaining herself to the front gates of the Ministry to protest the assimilation of Muggleborn children into established wizarding families is… good?” Harry says into the landline the very next day. Hermione’s voice comes through on a wave of static.

“I don’t know Harry, it might be that the Dark Lord killed a bunch of people.”

“Mum and Dad killed people during the war, too. Don’t even get me started on Uncle Sirius! Peter told me.”

“Peter is a creep.”

“That’s because he was on the other side of the war, and he thinks it’s still a secret.”

“Bye, Harry.”

“Thanks so much for all your help, Hermione,” Harry says sarcastically. She’s already hung up. 

“So, you have to have a kid, and he has to vanquish some Dark Lord?” Ron asks at Burrow ten minutes later.

“No, Harry _is_ the Dark Lord, and some kid is after him,” Fred says.

“No, _Snape_ is a Dark Lord and Neville Longbottom has to kill him,” George adds.

“That’s what I said,” Ginny laughs. 

“Haha, very funny,” Harry says. 

“Are you sure this isn’t meant to be a secret?” Percy asks, coming in with a plate of troll crisps. 

“No, it’s fine, who cares about some prophecy?” Harry tells the Gryffindor table at the start of his fifth year term. He’s due in Professor McGonagall’s office soon, to discuss the course of his future, and he’s still at least three weeks from having any sort of answer to that!

“Lord Slytherin was really a dark lord?” Neville asks nervously. “But he opened an orphanage.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Harry, bad people can do good things.”

“Careful, Hermione. That’s some advanced philosophy,” says George.

“Next you’ll be saying good people can do bad things!” says Fred.

“I think it’s cool you’re written in destiny,” Angelina says. “I mean how many people get to say they’re in a prophecy?”

“Trelawney has three death visions per Hogwarts student,” Ron says. “It’s not _that_ special.”

“Exactly,” Harry says emphatically. “It’s not special at all. So I can ignore it.”

Harry is really good at ignoring obvious, large things that worry him.

—

Finally, after a very painful conversation with his Head of House about his lackluster academic career, Harry finally decides to go straight to the source and draws out a quill and parchment. 

‘Hi, are you good or evil? Thanks,’ and here, Harry scratches out ‘Your Fiance,’ and leaves it at just ‘Harry.’

Hedwig is coaxed out the window with a tasty frog leg and returns within the hour. 

‘There is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it.’

This is a third option Harry hadn’t even been aware of. 

“Well, that sounds like something someone evil would say,” is all his friends have to say about it. 

As an absolute last resort, Harry goes to Uncle Severus, as Uncle Severus always berates Harry relentlessly for being a hopeless idiot whenever he needs help. However, Uncle Severus also always has the best answer. 

“Yes, I heard the original prophecy. It was utter nonsense, I refused to believe in that drivel, and still do. It’s why I informed the Dar—er. Ministry about it, so they could dismiss it if it unfortunately got around. And I see you told your friends? And all of Gryffindor House? Perhaps you’d like to write to the paper for good measure.”

“Do you think they’d print it?” Harry asks, and he receives a swat on the head from a rolled up first-year essay for his cheek.

“To think anyone would put any stock in such a prophecy after the war had already ended… of course there’s no accounting for Dumbledor’s whimsy. Or his dedication for dramatics. He’ll have a legion singing to his tune in no time, your parents included.”

“I think Dad just wants a reason to say I can’t marry Lord Slytherin.”

“Too right. Have you considered, Harry, that perhaps Lord Slytherin was evil at one time? And has since mellowed out with age? That perhaps any evil-doing might be deserving of forgiveness, if you so deem it? Hmm? Is there perhaps any room for a smidge of nuance in that empty head of yours?”

Harry feels his eyes tear up in relief as he nods his head.

“Yes, thank you Uncle Severus.”

“Ugh, cease this at once,” the man grunts as Harry manages to trap him in a one-sided hug, but Harry knows his octopus arms are very hard to avoid. “Off!”

“You’re the best Uncle Severus.”

“Off, infernal child!”

Harry glides out of the Potion Master’s office in renewed health. Once on the brink of death, he can now face the light of day.

He knows what he must do now, he only needs the opportunity. 

—

In the meantime, he focuses on studying for his OWLS, and plays quidditch. He does send that letter to Krum for his advice on pursuing a career as a seeker, and overall feels very satisfied with himself. 

“Mr. Potter, you wish to be a professional quidditch player?” Professor McGonagall asks. “Not an Auror?”

“Mum disapproves of state-sanctioned violence. Can I ask you a question? Could you tell me a bit more about the Ministry’s structure?”

“But what about quidditch?”

“I understand there’s the Wizengamot. Dad and Sirius have a seat. That chamber is on the tenth floor. And there’s the ICW, that’s on the fifth. And there’s the Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, that’s Barty Crouch Jr., but there’s no Minister of Magic anymore.”

“No. That position was dissolved. The High Warlock is comparable.”

“And High is higher than Supreme Mugwump?”

Professor McGonagall removes her spectacles and massages her nose.

“I’m going to assume this line of questioning is due to your interest in Lord Slytherin.”

“We’re engaged.”

“It would seem so. Sometimes, Harry, there are men who are powerful and who wish to be and feel important, and for the good of society and general greater convenience, we give those men certain positions so that they may make grand speeches and look good to other countries who have their own men who need to feel powerful. And that ends a war sometimes, and we get a few generations of peace.”

“Okay… I don’t understand any of that. But what I think you’re saying is the High Warlock’s office is where the Minister of Magic’s office used to be.”

“...Yes, that is true.”

“Great, thanks ever so much, see you later!”

—

Opportunity doesn’t present itself all year, and it isn’t until right after his OWLS that he knows what he must do. Ministry Official Delores Umbridge, the proctor of the exams and a truly horrendous approximation of a human being, is distracted by Fred and George’s post exam fireworks show, Dumbledore and Fawkes are out of the castle for undisclosed reasons, and the Headmaster’s Floo is completely unattended.

“I’ve got to go,” he tells his friends. 

“Where?”

“Top secret!”

“Harry!”

But he’s already pulled his invisibility cloak from his robes pocket and is running down the hall past groaning and bemoaning exam-takers. 

He’s been in Professor Dumbledore’s office a few times before, usually mischief related, his parents sitting beside him and enduring Dumbledore’s not-quite chastising speeches. Harry remembers a certain occasion fondly in which he and Ron had driven Mr. Weasley’s car right into the Whomping Willow. Harry hadn’t known how to drive manual, in his own defense. 

The office is much the same as it has always been, trinkets and whizzing apparatusi and smoking glass shapes, machines with too many cogs and a whole wall of sleepy portraits.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” one says.

“I’m ignoring you,” Harry says, ignoring him.

He takes a fiistfull of Floo powder and steps into Professor Dumbledore’s spacious hearth.

The portraits may shout at him at this point, saying all sorts of things like ’get out of there’ or ‘you’ll be sorry,’ but as Harry is ignoring them, he can’t be too sure. He takes a deep breath.

“High Warlock of England Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin-Potter’s Office, Ministry of Magic.”

“Well,” High Warlock of England Lord Thomas Marvolo Slytherin-Potter says when Harry comes barrelling out of the man’s fireplace. 

Harry lands on his back, spitting soot.

“You might clean your fireplace every once in a while,” he suggests. 

Lord Slytherin looks down his sleek nose at him.

“It isn’t supposed to be accessible.”

“Soulmate,” Harry says by way of explanation. 

“Of course.”

The man extends a hand, which Harry takes gratefully. It’s the first time they’ve touched since their very first meeting all those long years ago, and Harry stands so much taller now, nose to nose with Lord Slyhtherin’s chest rather than his waist. He suddenly doesn’t know what to say. 

“I can see you’ve quite forgotten what you’ve planned to say.”

Harry nods.

“Have a seat,” Lord Slytherin invites, and they sit on a velvety, emerald green kissing chair he transfigures from an ink well. They sit, and Lord Slytherin’s face is very close. They’ve never been this close before.

“Do you take all your visitors on the kissing chair?” he asks, wondering who else might have been sat here.

“Silly childe, I do not have visitors in my office.”

Harry ruffles at that first bit, and suddenly feels insecure. 

"Everyone seems to think this is a bad idea."

“It’s quite scandalous."

Harry pouts.

“Because I’m so young?”

“Hmm.”

Fifteen isn't that young, is it? Dad was already trying to date his mum at that age. He's never really thought about it. It never mattered to him! When Harry looks at Lord Slytherin, his face has the quality of being particularly difficult to pin. Like he's slippery to time, he… He seems somewhere not as old as his parents but older than Bill Weasley? Then again, if he really is a former Dark Lord, he’d have been a bit young to be leading an army.

“How old are you exactly?”

“Sixty-nine."

Harry plays it cool and does not fall out of his chair. 

“Oh.”

“So you can see why it’s been such a stir.”

“Right.”

“Why many might balk at the idea.”

“Witch Weekly called you a cradle robber.”

“Did they really.”

“You don’t want to know what dad calls you.”

“Harry, I only have so many lives, and you have an inexplicable surplus of father figures who dislike me. It’s best if I simply never speak to any of them at all.”

Harry huffs. His neck hurts from looking sideways at Lord Slytherin in this ridiculous kissing chair. 

"... You really believe me when I say we're soulmates?"

"Should I not?"

"Well, I noticed everyone else is skeptical."

Lord Slytherin takes his hand, and his fingers are very cool and his nails stained deep with ink. 

"When we first met—"

"When I was nine?"

"No. When we first met, I had just heard of this very silly prophecy many seemed to believe was about me. I wanted to meet the child that it suggested hypothetically might ‘destroy’ hypothetically ‘me.’"

"To kill it!" 

"You sit here before me, no? I didn't kill the child, Harry. I blessed him."

"Oh, I know what that is. Professor Dumbledore blessed me with perfect socks and Sirius gave me anti-tongue tying. It's great."

"And the one I gave you. May you find with perfect clarity your mate in soul and spirit."

"You did that?"

"There is nothing I could trust more than my own magic, and Harry, if a piece of it inside you says so, I must believe."

Harry looks down as his eyes tear up. He wipes his face with his free hand. 

"Oh."

Cool fingers pat his head.

“So what now?”

“Now,” Lord Slytherin says, standing and twirling Harry to his feet, “You return to school, hopefully before anyone notices your absence.”

“Oh, I left Professor Dumbledore a note in his office.”

Lord Slytherin looks at him with a very blank face.

“I didn’t want anyone to worry.”

“How thoughtful.”

“And I don’t mean what happens _now_ , now. I mean, what happens with... ” Harry gets a little shy and looks down. “Us?”

“Are you doing that on purpose? Nevermind... We are engaged.”

Harry’s heart leaps.

“We are?”

“I said yes if you recall.”

“I recall!”

“Hm. Perhaps it would help to have something to show for it.”

“Like what?”

Lord Slytherin reaches into his breast pocket and withdraws a very old gold ring. It’s lost its shine, and the mysterious black gem set in the center is deeply scratched.

“Would this do?”

He slides it on Harry’s limp finger and it instantly shrinks to fit. 

“I expect it will become of some use in your hands.”

Harry wiggles his hand, feeling the ring, watching it catch the light. It’s like it’s on someone else. 

“We’ll really be married?” he asks, unable to look away from the ring. Lord Slytherin tilts his face up by the chin. 

“If you are very good, I don’t see why we can’t have a winter wedding in a couple of years. Can you be good?”

“Yes,” Harry lies.

“Then we shall reconvene then.”

Lord Slytherin ushers him to the fireplace.

“Wait! You’re saying I won’t be able to see you again until I turn seventeen? Tom!”

“You went five years before.”

“We weren’t engaged then, ow!”

Harry's full on squatting in the hearth now, Lord Slytherin pushing him with a hand on his head. 

“According to you, we’ve been engaged our whole lives. I’m sure you’ll write.”

“I want to see you every day!”

“Ah, childe. No one wants to see anyone every day. Bye, now.”

Harry receives a mouthful of Floo powder and lands flat on his back at Dumbledore's feet. The man is holding Harry's note, eyes twinkling. 

"Welcome back, dear boy." 

—

They do marry, and they are very blessed.


End file.
